BRIDGEPORT -- Marking a potential milestone in the decades-delayed development of Steel Point, city leaders Monday submitted a plan to the City Council that would allow a newly created entity to bond up to $190 million to bankroll necessary infrastructure improvements.

The funding would comprise the bulk of the $231 million officials believe is needed to prepare the fenced-off, weed-choked peninsula along Bridgeport Harbor to be transformed into a buzzing retail, entertainment and housing hub lined with footpaths and ringed with yachts.

Under the draft agreement, the Steel Point Infrastructure Improvement District, which was formed in late February and is headed by Mayor Bill Finch's chief of staff, Adam Wood, would assume the debt needed to refit Steel Point with much of the new roads, utilities, telecommunications and landscaping needed to open for business.

Part of the remaining money would come from the $11.2 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, awarded to Bridgeport in October 2010. The funds for that grant are nearly in place and could bring actual labor to the site this summer, city officials said.

Finally, revenue generated by fees such as parking, boating and property leases at the development would be used to support an extra $30 million in bonding by the improvement district to round out the infrastructure work.

"(This) marks another step forward in the development of the peninsula," Elaine Ficarra, Finch's spokeswoman, said in a release Monday.

City officials and representatives from Florida-based Bridgeport Landing Development LLC will present the 64-page document at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to the City Council's Economic and Community Development and Environment Committee in the City Hall Wheeler Room. A similar meeting will take place next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the same location.

There will be at least one public hearing before the tentative deal goes before the full city council for a vote, Ficarra said in her release.

City officials said Monday that, if things move quickly, a big-name retailer could be named this summer and the first phase of bonding could start this fall.

"The developer has had encouraging discussions with a very exciting tenant, which is not public yet," said attorney John Stafstrom, the former Democratic Town Committee chairman, who helped draw up the agreement. "The state is very interested in this also, so I could see (the first) bond issue by the end of the year."

As sketched out now, the Steel Point Infrastructure Improvement District would issue $54 million in bonds the first time around, followed by rounds of $62 million, $36 million and $9.4 million in bonding over six years. But that timeframe is tentative, Stafstrom said, based on market conditions and how successful Steel Point proves to be.

The draft agreement also lays out the future relationship between the city and the newly created improvement project.

Until the latter has paid its bonding obligations, the bodies will share the property taxes from the site, Stafstrom said. Early on, the improvement district will receive the majority of the money, but gradually the ratio will shift.

The improvement district is chaired by a five-member body, with one person appointed by the mayor.

Wood, the current president, is joined by Edward Lavernoich, the city's deputy director of planning and economic development; Alana Kabel, the city's assistant chief administrative officer; Jay Levin, a lobbyist who has represented the developer; and Robert Christoph Jr., the Bridgeport Landing manager, who is the district's vice president.

Wood said the makeup of that could change before long, and that he doesn't envision staying on as president.

City officials declined to say what retail establishment might anchor the peninsula, but were hopeful Monday evening that an announcement might come this summer.